Ava Catherside | Intelligent Fashion

Unisex and with a monochrome palette, Ava Catherside is the epitome of cool in the world of intelligent fashion. Ava Catherside’s designers Anna Gloria Flores and Veronica Todisco are catering to a different kind of fashion crowd – one that has had enough of ‘fast fashion’ i.e. low quality with little meaning and a short lifespan (both in terms of being ‘in fashion’ and durability). With an almost OCD-like attention to detail, Ava creates garments that transcend the time capsule of fashion.

Volt Café picked the brains of the design duo to learn more about their views on fashion and the creative process.

Volt Café: Your S/S12 look book is captivating. What is the idea behind it?Ava Catherside: The void and everything about, around, inside and outside it. The need to create limited spaces through structures and lines. The way we occupy them, interact with them and become part of them.

VC: How often do your collections come out?AC: Twice a year: spring/summer and autumn/winter. Every collection is, in terms of shapes and concept, the development of the previous one.

VC: You say the process of creation is a key aspect of your work. How much does the methodology affect the end result? How often do you have a predetermined design in mind compared to the times the design derives from the steps you went through to create it?AC: The creation of the collections is generated by a purely mental approach. When we start working on the actual pieces the design is already final, the creative part is over. Then we just pedantically work to obtain the perfect proportions and measurements.

VC: Can you tell us a bit about the research process that constantly evolves during and between the collections? AC: The procedure develops stronger and clearer from season to season.
Starting from the initial key idea, we then process it through a combination of very straight rules built to turn it into something touchable, defined and real.
From macro to micro and viceversa.
A small detail becomes the subject of our studies, which then gets analyzed and developed in infinite combinations and applications in an almost obsessive/compulsive way.
A key aspect of each collection is the fabric research: each design from the S/S12 collection has been made from Alcantara®: an innovative material certified by TUV SUD which is 100% carbon neutral and environmentally friendly.

VC: Ava Catherside seems to be against rapidly changing trends and throwaway culture. What do you think of the pace of fashion nowadays? AC: Fashion nowadays is some kind of confusing funny game in which choosing something is substituted by absorbing a little bit of everything. We decided to step out and establish a new extreme against the consumerism behind it.

VC: What forms your aesthetic? AC: Seeking a purified fashion. Instead of trying to create something that looks new, we learn from tradition, finding new ways to improve it.

VC: How did you become interested in minimalism?AC: When we lost interest in everything else.

VC: What are you most inspired by outside of fashion?AC: Physics and mathematical rules applied to nature. The conscious evolution of humanity towards a level of sustainable existence.
The social, cultural and political power of art.

VC: Where and when do you feel most creative?AC: Silent early morning baths… Seconds of lucidity during the daily routine.